In a couple of essays, I’ve suggested that JD Vance is not a true MAGA conservative. Instead, when it comes to foreign policy, he strikes a decidedly Tucker Carlson-esque note (Israel bad, Qatar and other aggressively Muslim nations are our friends, Russia isn’t so bad, etc.), while his economic policies are beginning to have a decidedly Bernie Sanders odor hanging about them. In the same posts, I’ve worried about Vance’s failure (politely) to disavow the increasingly unhinged Tucker Carlson.
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Well, my anxieties notched up against yesterday when I learned what Vance was saying during a long appearance on Joe Rogan’s show. And while Rogan’s popularity continues to elude me, that’s a bully pulpit for the Vice President.
According to the New York Post’s summary, the fact that the Iran war continues isn’t because the Mullahs are religious fanatics determined to bring about the return of the hidden Imam and a global caliphate by incinerating Israel and America. Instead, it’s Israel’s fault:
Vice President JD Vance asserted in a bombshell interview with Joe Rogan that some in the Israeli government want to derail US negotiations with Iran to keep the war going “indefinitely” — and he acknowledged the Trump administration “screwed up” the release of the Epstein files.
“I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there have been people within the Israeli government who are trying to, like, actually shift us away from [negotiations] because they want to continue the military campaign,” Vance told the popular podcaster during an episode of the “Joe Rogan Experience” released Wednesday.
“There are some people within their system, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely,” the vice president later added. “Again, not towards any objective, but just indefinitely.”
Vice President JD Vance appeared on the “Joe Rogan Experience” Wednesday, revealing that some in the Israeli government want to derail US negotiations with Iran to keep the war going “indefinitely.”
Without naming Israel, Vance further alleged that there is a “very discreet, extremely well-funded … literal foreign-influence campaign being funded to tank” the Iran deal.
The vice president, however, was adamant that Israeli pressure didn’t influence President Trump’s decision to go to war in Iran.
This is pure Tucker Carlson. I mean, honestly, Vance could have ripped it right out of Carlson’s mouth.
Vance also used his appearance to promote more government involvement in the economy, a soggy, religiously infused version of Bernie’s socialism:
Vance replied by noting that, in his book, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith,” he laid out the historic norms of a Christian idea of a political economy that has been lost in recent American politics, one which was the norm throughout most of Western history and avoids the pitfalls of free markets and socialism.
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Vance suggested that even if he detests socialism, conservatives should try to understand why young people are drawn to it.
He proceeded to call out how the U.S. in recent decades has “run the experiment where we just try to do everything with low-wage foreigners, whether they’re in the United States via illegal immigration or whether they’re outside the United States via offshoring and outsourcing. And what it has led to is, I think, a society where socialism is a bit on the rise.
“We were left in quite a hole by 40 years of bad policy,” Vance said of his work to undo those underlying issues, arguing that the economic crisis of today cannot just be blamed on the previous Democratic administration.
“This is 40 years of failed bipartisan leadership which has created, really, a kind of shell corporation out of the United States of America. We don’t make enough of our own stuff. We don’t have enough self-reliance. Our workers don’t have enough bargaining power. That has led, in a lot of ways, to this kind of socialism fervor. And we have to keep fixing these problems.
[snip]
“So, I think that unless you go down that pathway of allowing young Americans to own something, socialism is the inevitable outcome,” he said, noting that while many Republicans can recognize that socialism is bad, they fail to understand what circumstances drove young people toward it.
In other words, if the government does socialism right, we won’t have “real” socialism. Talk about sophistry.
This is the antithesis of what the Founders envisioned. They imagined a world in which Americans had robust freedom from the government, but also one tempered by religious morality, in which citizens would care for the widow, the orphan, and others less fortunate. (This was, in fact, how America worked before the welfare state.) This was the classic religious formulation, which saw Jesus himself “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”
A moral people who work hard will create a successful ownership environment while ensuring that no one falls between the cracks. An immoral people who rely on the government to do their charity for them will create a failed nation, with the cracks eventually engulfing everyone but the nomenklatura.
Meanwhile, Marco Rubio, whom I am liking more with every passing day, gave an absolutely brilliant and courageous speech on terrorism, especially that coming from the left:
Republicans are going to have a choice in 2028, one that I hope doesn’t create a schism through which Democrats drive their socialist truck into the White House. I know, though, that if the primary were held today, my vote would be for Marco Rubio.
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